Them flyin guitars... what happens to them? he's too cheesy to use a damaged guitar. Does he only throw his guitar away when the concert is being filmed? Does he only throw telecasters about, or the expensive ones too?
Is it not a rather tasteless gesture?

Um, I believe he usually throws it to a roadie. Like on the Brit performance you can see the guy behind him catch it. On the Vanguard Jam he throws it up but forward like toward the audience so I would assume he has someone there too. It usually tends to be the Hohner that he tosses. I don't know if i've ever seen him throw the Symbol or Cloud. But the Symbol would be hard to catch I think!

The only one I still am not sure of is RRHOF. I have no idea where that guitar went to!

do u have a favourite guitar? I like the cloud. If they're collected for re-use I wonder if they're especially strengthened for the rough treatment. When one sees him play the guitars are always in top form
What do you mean by this? "RRHOF."

Sometimes a roadie catches it, or tries to catch it. Other times he just throws it down. On the outdoor New York tv show in '98 he throws a black symbol guitar down which seems to break. I'm sure there are examples of the cloud being thrown about. The Hohner after When My Guitar Gently Weeps is probably caught by the same roadie who holds him up while he leans backward over the edge of the stage. On the Webby Awards he threw a nice acoustic guitar over his shoulder. There's loads of examples.

All for impact and a dramatic full-stop to the performance. Hell, he can afford it, and somebody gets paid to make another one, so he's keeping the guitar industry in business!

I'd hate to get hit by a flyin' E. guitar. Let the force be with that roadie

thedribbler said:

RRHOF= Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. I have heard that he paints the Clouds, or used to, quite often. But I am sure he has top notch guitar techs that keep his guitars in pristine condition.

metalorange said:

Yeah, I remember seeing that and my jaw dropped, apparently the lower arm was snapped in half. That black version with gold speckles was a real favourite of mine - it just had this really unique tone to it. After that I think I saw the black version used again once (can't remember what performance it was for) but if you looked for it you could actually see where the arm had been sheared off and a hasty repair job had been done. He seemed to favour the gold version a lot more often after that.

An example of the cloud being thrown can be seen on the Dortmund Lovesexy show at the end of Let's Go Crazy where he throws it off the stage in a fit of pique. Also remember during the 1985 Syracuse show that at the turn-around in 'Computer Blue' he throws the Hohner over his shoulder without (seemingly) looking - and a roadie catches the thing, which in itself is quite impressive - bet that kept Wendy on her toes eh?

What I find interesting is that for someone who has so much respect for music, it seems he doesn't have too much respect for his equipment! But hey, that's our fella - a walking, talking mass of contradictions.

My favorite example of this is on the Rave Un2 The Year 2000 show when he kinda chucks his bass along the floor of the stage after the bass "battle" with Larry. He sorta shoots it off like a bowling ball and it skitters along until a roadie comes out and grabs it.

Always makes me cringe, but at least he's not outright using it for batting practice against his amps like some of the metal groups used to do. And he hasn't lit one of fire yet a la Hendrix.

His guitar technicians catch them, the most famous of them being Takumi Setsugo.

I´ve seen him throw away some Cloud and Hohner guitars over the years, most were caught by a technician, but if memory serves me right, the dark blue Cloud guitar he threw in the air in 1993 in Lüneburg landed on stage again after a really LONG flight.

Don't let it keep you up at night!

He has thrown all kinds of guitars around. A yellow cloud after Peach for example, in the Sacrifice of Victor Aftershow video. He doesn't just throw it into the air though, he smashes it on the ground. I remember people saying that he threw a blue cloud at the Nighttown Aftershow in 2002 and let it resonate like hell through the club. Black symbol guitar, Peach at the MTV awards 1994. At the Today Show Dinner with Dolores performance.
It's usually done for the show effect of course, but every now and then he seems to display genuine anger with it.

wlcm2thdwn said:

thanks for the hot tip!

calldapplwondery83 said:

This was one I remember, and Prince really seemed to show a bit of anger!

It was a black symbol guitar and the scroll broke off after landing.

I guess it was synonymous(sp?) with Mayté bustin' her ass attemting a stage-dive with noone there to catch her.

But, they picked her up and brushed her off for the next show (also).

KoolEaze said:

Takumi seemed like a nice guy, I watched him work right in front of me when I was front row center at an ONA show. He has so much to do, keeping up with Prince! Yet he still was polite to us and even found time to point us to the part when musicians appeared in the audience.

I really hate to see guitars being abused. Guitars should be treated with the utmost care and respect! (Hey, maybe I should start a campaign?)

As someone who's had the experience of scrimping and saving for over a year just to buy a mid-range model, it makes me cringe to see Prince send a Cloud or whatever flying.

Reminds me of that John Hiatt song 'Perfectly Good Guitar':

Oh it breaks my heart to see those stars
Smashing a perfectly good guitar
I dont know who they think they are
Smashing a perfectly good guitar

"Oh it breaks my heart to see those stars
Smashing a perfectly good guitar
I dont know who they think they are
Smashing a perfectly good guitar"

And that's the truth of it. I have to agree with the man. Smashing beautiful guitars is not cool.

I don't care much for musicians throwing guitars... Irks me... Someone might get hurt...

Most of u sound like a bunch of bored housewives, sheesh its rock n roll baby!

All this talk about showing guitars respect etc, complete nonsense, if u got 2 that point of complete unconcious compentence that he has with that instrument then u 2 can do whatever the hell u want 2 do with it! lol

I always love when he displays that type of anger and showmanship! This was best exemplified during the Dortmund concert 88, during Lets go Crazy, Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and the last nite of his act 2 tour at Wembley Arena 1993

He threw the Yellow Cloud up 2 the ceiling and it broke in 2.

Yoda

YODAHENDRIX said:

Swap that for 'if you're rolling in cash' and I don't have a problem with it either.

stim said:

NDRU said:

Add another one to the mix: